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Spring 2016

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Table of Contents: Spring 2016

Faculty Briefs

Two faculty members from the geography department — Assistant Professors Tim Baird and Bob Oliver — were among the eight selected as 2015 Pathways Faculty Scholars, a role that was initiated last year and is a vital part of the university’s initiative to reinvent its general education curriculum.

Alumni Corner

Alumna Beth Ingalls has spent her career “putting out fires,” using skills she developed as a student. And since earning her forestry degree in 1977, she has been giving to the college annually so others would have the same opportunities to learn the lifelong skills that make careers.

President Obama recently named 105 independent researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor given to researchers by the U.S. government in their early careers.

We love hearing about all the great things going on with our alumni — awards, promotions, retirements, etc. Regrettably, we don’t have enough space in the newsmagazine to print them all. You can now catch up with former classmates and fellow Hokies online.

Features

In the quiet of early January on campus, a group of undergraduate students got a head start wrestling with one of the weightiest challenges their generation will face: how to achieve sustainable growth in a globalized society and a changing climate.

Student Notes

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, has attracted scientists from across the nation, most notably Virginia Tech’s Professor Marc Edwards. He and the Virginia Tech Flint Water Study Team have been sending water testing kits, analyzing data, and issuing reports about the threat to public health from high lead and bacteria levels. Sophomore Maggie Carolan of Stafford, Virginia, is advocating for the health of Flint residents.

Scientists from around the world gathered on campus when Virginia Tech hosted a meeting of the Landsat Science Team, who analyzes data collected by the succession of Landsat satellites that have orbited the Earth since 1972.

It took over a decade for the global framework called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) to become officially written into the Paris climate change agreement in 2015. Now a Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation researcher is working to make it a reality.

Brazil’s Universidade Federal de Lavras (UFLA) signed a letter of intent with the college to facilitate future agreements for establishing an international exchange of faculty and students, research data, and development programs.

Valerie Thomas, associate professor of forest remote sensing, and Yang Shao, assistant professor of geography, were named the new co-directors of the college’s Center for Environmental Applications of Remote Sensing in December.